I made a book for a young friend. It describes one of our recent adventures: a circular run we completed together, before lockdown. Here are some of the pages:
Here is the book under construction. The binding was made from the stiff cardboard from the back of drawing pads, strengthened at the spine with scrim, and covered in brown paper. In the absence of a bookbinding press I used two 12kg weights, and the breadboard. There were 32 useable sides (16 leaves), 4 signatures of 2 sheets and 1 signature of 1 sheet. The paper is Khadi smooth watercolour paper.
Work in progress on the book.
Click a button below to share this post online, email it, or print it:
I have been gifted some old music scores, hardback, which, by a happy coincidence, are exactly the same size as Sketchbook No. 7.
And I have watercolour paper in sheets.
So I looked carefully at the construction of the score, and used a combination of “coptic binding” and an improvised sewing method incorporating ribbons, to sew the watercolour sheets together. Then I removed the music from the score, and put in the watercolour paper. Here are some pictures, click to enlarge:
Bach Mass, hardback
Ready to be re-purposed
Remove the old score
The spine has writing in!
Fold the watercolour paper sections
Paper has a watermark
Must get the watermark the right way up
Hold the ribbons in place
Sew the sections together
Tighten the sewn sections
Check it fits
Try out the opening
Add linen for strength
Clamp with clips
Ready to glue in place
Press the binding
24kg weight
Next day: Sketchbook No. 7 ready to go.
It opens OK.
Opens flat without breaking.
The size of the sketchbook is about 10inches by 7inches. The paper is Arches Aquarelle, 300gsm with a slight rough surface called “cold-pressed” or “NOT”. I used PVA glue, which may or may not have the required durability. Time will tell.
The covers are the Novello and Company Limited edition of J.S. Bach Mass in B Minor, written in around 1737. This edition was published in 1908, containing edits by Mr Otto Goldschmidt in 1908, and Arthur Sullivan for the Leeds Festival in 1886. Mr Sullivan writes, in the “Editorial Notes”:
“The few marks of expression used in this edition were inserted by me for the performance of the Mass at the Leeds Festival of 1886. I have employed them very sparingly, so that the breadth and grandeur of the work might not be impaired. They are indications of degrees of force, rather than of expression. In every case I have been guided by the character of the music or by the meaning of the words.” Arthur Sullivan, October 1886
I found out more about this Arthur Sullivan. He is the Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan, the duo who wrote many comic operettas, still performed today: HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado, to name but three. Sullivan wrote the music and Gilbert wrote the words.
As well as these operettas, Sullivan was a prolific composer of serious music. He wrote the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” and the anthem “By the Waters of Babylon”, which he composed when he was 8. He wrote incidental music for Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, which was “a sensation”. I wonder if it is still around. This Leeds Festival, for which he annotated the score of the Bach Mass, was clearly a big event. Wikipedia tells me:
In 1886 Sullivan composed his second and last large-scale choral work of the decade. It was a cantata for the Leeds Festival, The Golden Legend, based on Longfellow’s poem of the same name. Apart from the comic operas, this proved to be Sullivan’s best received full-length work. It was given hundreds of performances during his lifetime, and at one point he declared a moratorium on its presentation, fearing that it would become over-exposed. Only Handel’s Messiah was performed more often in Britain in the 1880s and 1890s. It remained in the repertory until about the 1920s, but since then it has seldom been performed; it received its first professional recording in 2001.
I made a story book for a young friend. It describes an evening we spent together back in December. Here are some of the illustrations:
Title page.
The long route home.
I have forgotten the key. How stupid is that?
The rules are explained.
I am told off. I didn’t follow the rules.
Here’s the view of the table: from above!
We rush.
On the way home.
I present the book.
End page.
Attribution.
A few of the illustrations from the book.
I made the illustrations by cutting shapes out of the coloured parts of magazines. Magazine pages are suitably strong and luxuriously glossy. Sometimes the pictures have textures which are helpful to the theme. The figures are about an inch high or less. It was very fiddly.
I decided to give the book a hard cover. Out there in the wild, it would need some protection. I’d not done a hard cover binding before. I examined several hardback books and had a go. Here are some pictures of the construction process:
The total mess of my materials box. Trying to find something suitable for binding a book.
Ruggedising the binding.
The binding is made stronger by adding pieces of silk and PVA glue.
The cover: the spine is a piece of linen curtaining.
Inside view of the cover: the cardboard spine is kept in place by some Japanese paper, which is strong and flexible.
Close up of the top of the spine: linen and Japanese paper.
Testing that the spine bent OK. It did.
The spine bends fine. It already looks quite authentic.
The inside of the book and the cover, ready to go together.
The inside of the book.
The cover.
I covered the cover in some amazing paper I found.
Covering the cover.
The cover centre.
Cover, centre, close up.
Now I glue in the pages.
I realised that the cover glue must not go to the edges. So I put a length of washi tape (green and white striped) to remind me not to go crazy with the glue.
The back end-page ready to glue in place.
The front of the finished book.
Here’s the spine.
The spine: not perfect, but good for a first attempt.
Spine successfully opens out flat.
See the wonderful paper of the cover. It shines.
Making the book.
It worked well! It remains to be seen how it fares. It’s out there now, being read and enjoyed by one of the characters in the story.
Click a button below to share this post online, email it, or print it: